Our enormous & unserviceable debts are going to crush us

by Chris Martenson

Economies are cyclical. Bust always follows boom in the same way the moon follows the sun.

We very nearly had a recession in early 2016. I remain impressed how it was averted then by the application of tremendous amounts of newly-printed-from-thin-air money. It took several trillions of dollars globally, but it worked (if we can call enabling the global economy to take on additional $trillions in debt that will never be repaid ‘working’)

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How to value & finance real estate property

by Adam Taggart

If you've not been watching our Real Estate investing webinar series, you're missing out on a wealth of learning.

Our last episode, Episode #3, received rave reviews. It was a 2-hour romp through the math involved in valuing real estate property. Russell Gray does an excellent job de-mystifying the numbers for newbies and the math-phobic, walking through the calculations and showing how virtually anyone can derive empirical answers to questions like:

What's a fair value for this property? Is it under/overvalued?

What's my expected return if I purchase this property?

What are the investments can I make that will have the biggest impact on increasing my equity? Or my income?

Don't forget to register for our upcoming Episode #4, in which Russ will build on his earlier material, explaining how to secure capital for investment property, how leverage can be used (prudently, not recklessly) to increase your returns, and what tax implications (and often benefits) to expect.

In Part 1 we surveyed the dynamics driving ever-expanding state control, the state’s priorities in crisis management (secure the state’s authority and the wealth/power of elites) and the authorities’ current preference for indirect control of the market.

Leverage and the Market as a Signifier

Markets are no longer markets—they are simulacra of markets, displaying the superficial appearance but not the dynamics and uncertainties of real markets, which have an unnerving tendency to veer away from the state-approved scripts of permanent, stable expansion.

Why have central banks and states (which includes blocs of nations such as the Eurozone with a centralized governing elite) chosen to cloak their control of markets?

The answer is has two parts: 1) central banks/states must leverage their intervention due to the monumental scale of global markets; owning assets worth hundreds of trillions of dollars is at best awkward in the current arrangement and at worst politically impossible.

While financial leverage is a relatively straightforward tool, 2) the real leverage is exerting psychological control over the market by transforming market price action into a signifier (i.e. signaling mechanism) that persuades participants to…

In Part 1, we surveyed the nature of power to explore the concept of superpowers. In this Part 2, we look at power as the ability to solve problems.

What Are the Available Resources?

Solving problems in the real world is not an abstract project, though abstract concepts may undergird the solutions. In the real world, we have to use whatever resources are available, with an eye on cost, scale and sustainability.

Alternative energy offers a useful example. Almost everyone agrees that alternatives to fossil fuels would be beneficial, but what is generally overlooked is the tiny scale of alternatives in the current scheme of things. Depending on what’s being included as alternative (hydropower, etc.), alternative energy sources currently comprise a few percentage points of total energy consumption.

To scale alternatives up to even 50% of current consumption will require not just a monumental amount of capital investment; it also requires the invention and manufacture of new systems of energy storage on an equally vast scale.

As has been noted many times, this capital investment includes an extended period of fossil fuels consumption, as we need huge amounts of energy to construct alternative sources and storage systems. Some have characterized this as building an aircraft in the air while keeping your current aircraft aloft.

As Peak Prosperity members know well, capital has a variety of forms, all of which work together: financial, intellectual, social, human, cultural and symbolic. All these forms of capital must be…

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by Adam Taggart

“Straight Talk” features thinking from notable minds that the ChrisMartenson.com audience has indicated it wants to learn more about. Readers submit the questions they want addressed and our guests take their best crack at answering. The comments and opinions expressed by our guests are their own.

This week’s Straight Talk contributor is Tyler Durden, founder and chief demagogue of the popular econoblog Zero Hedge. Zero Hedge’s mission is to bring back a more critical, rigorous, and informed style of commentary and synthesis for the professional investing public. The blog has experienced explosive growth in it’s two-year existence, due in part to its prolific coverage of financial events as well as its unapologetic (some say controversial) editorial approach, which is often highly critical of today’s economic and political leaders.

1. What led you to start Zero Hedge? Was there a particular story or moment? For many of our readers, you have become the CNN of the Great Collapse (this is seen as a positive thing). Is this what you set out to be?

Zero Hedge was started two years ago in the aftermath of the Great Financial Crash, as coined by Bill Buckler, when we realized there is a substantial vacuum in information distribution, and to a lesser extent, processing. The financial media world was (and to a great extent still is) dominated by journalists who were learning finance on the job and thus were incapable of putting the dots together on most stories under investigation.